Set to be our 3rd publication, Saving time is almost ready for distribution! It’s been read by my lovely alpha readers – the 12 year old triplets of a friend or mine – and is currently with my adult betas who will no doubt tell me to scrap it and start over.
The thing that I’ve discovered through this process is how brutal kids are! The triplets reacted very badly to one of my child characters so I’ve had to remove all trace of him from the book – it’s like he broke up with Russia! He’s been scrubbed out to existence. This left me with a very strange feeling. I don’t know if I wasn’t invested in him very much so it didn’t upset me to have to kill him, or if the fact that I wasn’t invested in him was the reason I had to kill him. Perhaps if I’d loved him more he would have been a more likable character. I tried to make him likable but it was just not happening!
My beta readers are great. They’ve been very constructive so far and have helped me with some tweaks. The worry I have is that because they’re friends they don’t want to hurt my feelings and won’t say “Well that’s a steaming heap, get rid of this that and that” if they feel the need to. I’m pretty thick skinned when it comes to constructive criticism. I’ve ghosted for some pretty demanding publishers in the past and they didn’t pull the punches. Constructive criticism – criticism that comes with suggestions – is vital to how writers work. Without it we would stall.
In a not too distant future, in a world where lawlessness reigns and no one looks for missing children 11 year old Tag is running for his life. He’s stolen something, he’s not sure what, from the Church Street Gang and they are hunting him down.
When he finally gets a chance to investigate the package Tag takes it to a strange curiosity shop where Deli, a girl from his past, is living under a different name with an old man who is obsessed with the location of the hour that is taken out for British summer time.
The discovery of the true relevance of the object together with news of another missing item throws the children into a battle to save time itself.
aaaand tea break
readingroomcafeproject 